Dear Diary,
It's me, Anna Kate. I know that it has been a while... it's just that I have a lot going on. As you know, I just started my last year in my pediatric residency at Seattle Grace Mercy West Hospital this past fall. To be completely honest, I went into my last year thinking that my professional life was going to be a mess. I prepared myself for the twenty-four-hour shifts, sleep deprivation, and stress about passing my boards. What I was not prepared for was that my love-life would be a complete and utter mess.
You see, within the past four years, I have finally gotten to a place where I feel like I could settle down. I actually want to fall in love, not just like someone. Weird right? I feel like this is one small step for man, but a leap for my personal life. However ,when I say I want to settle down, it doesn't mean that I want to just settle for anyone. In the past, I have dated a thirty-year-old man-child and a commitment-fearing twenty-seven-year -old who refuses to leave behind his college days. You see, these men, or should I say, boys, showed so much potential at the beginning. I mean they both had serious careers and had plans for the future. In fact, they seemed to be more committed than I was. Which should come to no surprise, as I was still fairly new to this whole fall in love and possibly get married thing. Spoiler alert: they were not ready. I was heartbroken, as I had finally opened up my heart only for it to be thrown back at my face. I was about ready to give up and accept the fact that love is not something I need in my life. Then Noah happened.
Noah is a first-year attending in plastic surgery. I have known Noah for almost four years. At first, Noah and I didn't get along. You probably remember me writing about how arrogant and irritating he was. He probably thought I was a know-it-all because I was right a majority of the time, but that's not important. Despite our rough beginning, somehow Noah and I were able to forge a friendship. Turns out we have a lot in common. There is a lot of depth to Noah, something that surprised me. To my complete and utter shock, he was also ready to settle down. Well, as life has it, as the months went on and we worked on more cases together our friendship started to blur into something else... Two years after being friends, we are now "more than friends."
Now I know what you are thinking. He's ready to commit, y'all have a good friendship, and he is a doctor. What more could a girl want? You could be the new Meredith Grey and Derek Shephard. Perhaps not. You see, Noah's past scares me. Why, you ask? Every single nurse I have talked to has reminded me about Noah's playboy ways. I mean I have seen his old ways. Let me just say that he knows that he is attractive. Anytime we went to a bar, restaurant, or any other place where there were females around... he just couldn't help himself. I love that for me.
Despite his damning past, there is a part of me that still wants him. I mean if I was able to change, surely he would be able to too? So like any other normal human being, I decided to test him to see if he was truly ready to commit. Totally normal. I decided to ask him to move in with me. I knew that the lease was almost up on his apartment so this was the perfect timing. Additionally, we had both talked about living together eventually so why not now? This was a big deal because I knew how much he liked his penthouse; it was essentially the world's best bachelor pad. If he gives up the pad to move into my house in the middle of the suburbs, surely he is ready, right?
So I asked him. I think that was the last thing he expected me to ask him. He looked confused, shocked, and scared all at the same time. I felt like I already had my answer. However, he told me he would need a week to think about it, which I understand. I mean I had just asked a lot of him. The days went by so slowly that week. We didn't really talk much about it because we didn't really see each other much that week. My initial suspicion was getting stronger. A little part of me felt bad for springing this on him but I needed an answer. I didn't want to waste another year in a relationship that was going nowhere.
Exactly a week later, Noah told me he needed to talk to me. I don't think there would have been enough time in the world for me to be emotionally prepared for what he had to say. With all seriousness written across his face, he asked me, " Do you think my pool table will fit in the living room?" Huh? For the next hour or so, he kept asking me about random stuff, like where his beer fridge would fit in the kitchen, where he should put his Xbox, if the closet was big enough for both of our shoes. Then it occurred to me he was asking me all these "random questions" because he was going to move in with me. He just wanted to make sure that my home would feel like his home, so that it would be our house.
So, diary, do you think he might be the one?
Sincerely,
an utterly surprised, yet happy Anna Kate
Author's Note
I based my story upon Hans Christian Andersen's The Princess and the Pea. In the original story, a prince is struggling to find a true princess to marry. One night, a princess comes knocking on his door and asks to seek shelter from a storm. The queen decided to test if the princess is truly a princess by putting a pea under her mattress. When the prince asks how the princess slept, she replies that she slept horribly. Overjoyed with the princess's answer, the queen reveals only a true princess would know that a pea was in her mattress. At the end of the story, the prince and princess get married.
In my story, I decided to make the characters doctors rather than royalty. I felt that it would be more realistic to find a doctor in Seattle than a prince or princess. Additionally, I decided to reverse the genders of the "prince" and "princess" from the original story. I wanted Dr. Anna Kate to be the one administering the test. I chose to do this because I wanted the focus of my story to be on a strong, independent, career-driven female that was making her own decision to create the future that she deserved.
Image Information: Image of a stethoscope and heart. Source: Flickr
Bibliography: The Princess and the Pea. Story source: Fairy Tales and Stories by Hans Christian Andersen, translated by H. P. Paull (1872).